More news from howard: The Phelpses lost a round when the 8th circuit en banc overturned a ruling saying a town's anti-funeral-picketing ordinance was unconstitutional. The supreme court -probably- won't take this case, but the Phelpses have won there before. They are the crazy "god hates fags" folks. I've known them for years, been picketed by them, but support their right to be crazy picketers.

And Scalia, giving a talk in Philly about the constitution, got a parking ticket. I don't drive in Philly.
My mom tells me the new Barnes Foundation museum, which controversially relocated to Philly from the suburbs, is nice. It was the first place I remember seeing a Rodan.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Nebraska, drinking ID's, and the dormant commerce clause.

I was traveling for work in Nebraska for the past several days. At one bar, closed when I went by, there was an official-looking list of what ID's one needs to drink there.
OK: valid driver's license, any state. Passport. Nebraska ID.
Not OK: ID's (not driver's licenses, but state-issued ID) from other states.

I have an expired Indiana driver's license and a current Indiana ID. My beard is gray; there is no issue of whether I am 21. The Nebraska scheme is officiousness for its own sake.

Now, it seemed to me at the time that this would be a likely violation of the dormant commerce clause.
It is discrimination against residents of other states.
On another hand, alcohol regulation is sometimes an exception. I recall there was a case about wine sales to other-state residents a couple years ago, but I forget how it turned out.
[ Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460, (2005)]
I did a little research, by going to a lesbian bar for kareoke night, but they didn't ask for my ID. I'm 52 and look it, I guess. Blogger doesn't let me upload sound files. If I find somewhere else to host them I'll add to this post later. But now I need to go to google and see if there's some official statement from Nebraska on this topic.
Bingo http://www.lcc.ne.gov/Enforcement/AGE%20VERIFICATION.pdf

The five types of identification that are lawfully acceptable in the State of Nebraska for the purchase of alcohol are: 1) a valid not expired drivers or operators license from any state, 2) a valid not expired new style Nebraska identification card, 3) a military identification card, 4) a passport or 5) an Alien Registration Card. Non-Nebraska State ID cards are not acceptable.http://www.lcc.ne.gov:
301 Centennial Mall South, 5th Floor
Lincoln NE 68509
PO Box 95046
Lincoln NE 68509
=
so not i need to check the legal status of booze and the dormant commerce clause. i was trying to remember the name of the bloomington law professor who is big on this stuff, and Posner reminded me: Patrick Baude. (Father of former Roberts clerk Will Baude.) Baude v. Heath,
538 F.3d 608, 613 (7th Cir. 2008), cited in Lebamov v Husky. http://www.alcohollawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Lebamoff.pdf
“Even though [the challenged statute] represents
the exercise of a core state power pursuant to the Twentyfirst
Amendment, a balancing of state and federal
interests must be conducted.” U.S. Airways, Inc. v.
O’Donnell, 627 F.3d 1318, 1330 (10th Cir. 2010).

The Amendment
did not give States the authority to pass nonuniform laws
in order to discriminate against out-of-state goods... Granholm.See
also Healy v. Beer Institute, Inc., 491 U.S. 324 (1989).

I think I may drop Nebraska a note and ask why they are discriminating against me. I was in Lincoln a couple of days ago. I wanted a drink. I drink gin and tonics. I noticed a posted list of required documentation. http://www.lcc.ne.gov/Enforcement/AGE%20VERIFICATION.pdf

The five types of identification that are lawfully acceptable in the State of Nebraska for the purchase of alcohol are: 1) a valid not expired drivers or operators license from any state, 2) a valid not expired new style Nebraska identification card, 3) a military identification card, 4) a passport or 5) an Alien Registration Card. Non-Nebraska State ID cards are not acceptable.

Now, I have an Indiana state ID card. I do not have a passport. My Indiana driver's license is expired, and not renewable, as it is suspended.So I do not seem to have the documentation to buy a drink in Lincoln. As a retired civil rights attorney, this concerns me. It seems off hand like a probable violation of the dormant commerce clause.See generally See Arnold’s Wines, Inc. v. Boyle, 571 F.3d 185, 192-201 (2d Cir. 2009), Bridenbaugh v. Freeman-Wilson, 227 F.3d 848, 851-53 (7th Cir. 2000)

Perhaps you could let me know if your policies have been reviewed for constitutionality by a neutral party and share that info with me, or you could change your policy, or you could grant me some sort of personal exemption if you prefer. I should note that a lot of what I do these days, as a sort of a hobby, is litigate about discriminatory ID policies.I look forward to hearing from you.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Friday, October 12, 2012

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Monday, October 08, 2012

I'm reading Tynan vs the Peruvian Andes. http://tynan.com/peru
He gets a good deal on a ticket to south america, so he decides to take a hike in the andes.
It reminds me of my stroll up meadow mountain about 3 years ago.
My grandparents got married in 1916 and on their honeymoon climbed Long's Peak, a 14,000 footer near Estes Park. She lived to be 99 and had 16 grandkids and lots of great-grandkids. She would spend the summers at a cabin at Meeker Park at the base of Mount Meeker, and various numbers of us would visit for a week or so, and some of us still go, even now that Uncle Bob died. So my cousin Kristin was training for climbing Long's Peak by walking up Meadow Mountain, and some of us tagged along. I used to live in Boulder County, but I live in Indiana now. I'm writing this from Buffalo NY at the moment, after a day on Greyhounds. I have lost my altitude adjustment. I got altitude sickness and stopped about 200 feet short of the top.

So I can kind of relate to what Tynan would have been going through, but his story is just beginning and now I'll get back to it.... "Then it starts to hail."

He ends up taking a passing truck instead of walking the last bit,and makes friends on the truck, hot tubs, and gets to macchu pichu which was the goal. he muses about whether to count such adventures as failures or successes. I was pretty close to the top of meadow mountain, and i could have dragged myself up there, but i chose not to, and i'm fine with that choice.

Currently I face some choices. Do I buy the $10,600 house I looked at yesterday? I like the house, but not the block it's on. I used to own three vacant lots on that block.
Do I keep fighting the county treasurer over $1050 that I was overtaxed? I think I do, but it's a choice.
Do I try to come up with around $4,000 to get my law license back, or do i find a way around it, or just let it go? It turns out that I did the paperwork wrong when I let my license lapse a few years ago, and there are fees that keep building up every year that I could have avoided. Should I stay focused on fighting voter ID, or should I go back to working on my political sign cases, or try to do both, or neither? Should I focus more on work, and money, or should I put more effort into trying to date again? Now that I've dropped tumblr, shuld I keep wasting hours on reddit?
I am unsettled on all of this, and not quite sure where I'm heading. I enjoy reading Tynan for his perspective on this kind of stuff. Most of the people I hang out with watch a lot of TV and don't seem to have any goals in life. I used to have goals.

[update added later: tynan asked me to write something further on this topic for his site, and i've done a rough draft, that i'll need to edit a bit before posting.]

Sunday, October 07, 2012

word for the day: vexillology

via scalzi.

This picture of a sheet bend is the flag of the vexillology association. I used to know how to bend sheets. I remember it is a nautical knot. My scoutmaster, a man I loved a lot, had been a merchant marine. Something I don't know much about is topology. I'm guessing a sheet bend has interesting topology. The best topology blogging i've run into today was at boingboing, about hexaflexagons, or are they flexahexagons?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexillology

Saturday, October 06, 2012

An Indiana farmer has taken his case against Monsanto to the Supreme Court.

Monsanto won $84000 from Bowman for planting seeds, but he says he has a right to buy seeds and plant them,and now the Supreme Court will decide. My guess is Monsanto now wishes they hadn't taken him on. I didn't find much on him. here's a 1940 census record.Vernon Hugh Bowman2, born abt 1938Home in 1940 Vigo, Knox, Indiana